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Argentina is teetering on the brink of an unpredictable new political era this weekend with an erratic far-right populist known as “El Loco” (the Madman) the slight favourite to become president of South America’s second-largest economy in Sunday’s election. As polls opened on Sunday morning against a backdrop of soaring inflation and widespread poverty, analysts believed Javier Milei, a TV celebrity turned congressman, held a slender advantage over his rival, the finance minister, Sergio Massa, but said the result was too close to call. Massa, a centrist member of Alberto Fernández’s incumbent Peronist administration, unexpectedly won last month’s first round,...

Kit Hamley holds a large male sea lion skull from a bone pile at New Island. Dozens of individual sea lions were present throughout the bone pile assemblages excavated at New Island.Credit: Kit Hamley

The wreck of a World War One German armoured cruiser has been located off the Falkland Islands, where it was sunk by the British navy 105 years ago. SMS Scharnhorst was the flagship of German Vice-Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee's East Asia Squadron. It was sunk on 8 December 1914 with more than 800 men on board, including Vice-Adm von Spee himself. The leader of the search for the wreckage said the moment of discovery was "extraordinary".

Britain has spent £78 million protecting the Falkland Islands with a new missile defense shield also used by Israel, Russia Today reported Thursday. The Falklands’ new Sky Sabre defense system is part of a £280-million renewal package for the islands announced by then-defense secretary Michael Fallon in 2015. The Sabre uses radar to track short-range rockets and can predict a missile’s path and blow it out of the sky before it reaches its target. The shield utilizes the same technology as Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, which has shot down hundreds of rockets fired from Gaza. It will be fully...

Secret US memo for Congress seen by Mail On Sunday says Britain's 'special relationship' with America is over Washington believes that the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US is over, according to a secret briefing document seen by The Mail on Sunday. The memo for members of Congress states damningly that ‘the UK may not be viewed as centrally relevant to the United States in all of the issues and relations considered a priority on the US agenda’. Dated April 2015 and drawn up to brief the Senate and House of Representatives on the impact of Britain’s General Election,...

The U.K. has sent extra military support to one of its overseas colonies at the bottom of the world, the Falkland Islands, amid concerns that it is facing increased risk of attack from Argentina, backed by Russia. Two troop-carrying Chinook helicopters and a new surface-to-air missile system have been sent by the U.K. to the remote islands in the South Atlantic, known as Las Malvinas in Argentina. They were the subject of a short-lived war between the U.K. and Argentina in 1982, and lie to the east of Argentina, 8,000 miles away from Britain.

VENICE, Italy — President Reagan, who less than two years ago signed the most expensive farm aid bill in history, called Friday for the elimination of agricultural subsidies worldwide by the year 2000 as a way of promoting better world economic health.At the same time, Reagan said that the United States has made "real progress" in trimming its budget deficit, despite ongoing spending battles with Congress, thereby freeing for private investment abroad some of the foreign capital that has been tied up financing the U.S. debt.Reagan's remarks, made in a speech televised by Worldnet and provided to networks around the...

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The planned unveiling of a statue of Margaret Thatcher on the Falkland Islands has sparked a furious new row between Britain and Argentina. The bronze sculpture of the Prime Minister whose forces freed the islanders after the 1982 invasion will be unveiled in the capital Stanley next month. But Argentina's ambassador to London, Alicia Castro, has condemned the statue 'in our Malvinas Islands' as a provocative move, saying: 'What the UK is doing is celebrating war.' Her anger was echoed by veterans' leader Mario Volpe in Buenos Aires. He said: 'The statue is not a symbol of democracy. It's her...

For the first time in three decades, paleontologists are about to revisit one of North America's most remarkable troves of ancient fossils: The bones of tens of thousands of animals piled at the bottom of a sinkhole-type cave. Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming is 85 feet (25 meters) deep and almost impossible to see until you're standing right next to it. Over tens of thousands of years, many, many animals—including now-extinct mammoths, short-faced bears, American lions and American cheetahs—shared the misfortune of not noticing the 15-foot-wide (4 meters) opening until they were plunging to their deaths. Now, the U.S. Bureau...

(Reuters) - Scientists excavating an ancient Wyoming sinkhole containing a rare trove of fossils of Ice Age mammals have unearthed hundreds of bones of such prehistoric animals as American cheetahs, a paleontologist said on Friday. The two-week dig by an international team of researchers led by Des Moines University paleontologist Julie Meachen marked the first exploration of Natural Trap Cave at the base of the Bighorn Mountains in north-central Wyoming since its initial discovery in the 1970s. Meachen said the extensive excavation that began late last month uncovered roughly 200 large bones of animals like horses that roamed North America...

The cave is cool and damp -- prefect for preserving prehistoric remains, Meachen says. "It's like a refrigerator in there, and probably has been for 20,000 years," she said. "Some of the bones we're finding there have collagen in them. That is where you could get the ancient DNA." The scientists saw bones falling out of a part of the cave, and decided to start digging there. "That was the fossil layer," she said. "There is so much to dig. We have two more years for funding that we can be out there, so we are going to try to...

Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo will travel to Buenos Aires next month to discuss a joint diplomatic offensive over the disputed territories.

Whitehall officials proposed the presence of Argentine officials at a meeting of the committee which is organising the funeral, code-named Operation True Blue. The Telegraph understands that Lady Thatcher’s children, Sir Mark and Carol, believe that such protocol would be “inappropriate”. Sir Mark, who returned to Britain from Barbados on Tuesday, will attend a meeting of the Operation True Blue committee tomorrow to represent his mother’s interests. The committee, which is meeting on a daily basis, is planning to make the liberation of the Falkland Islands a central part of the ceremonial funeral on Wednesday.

STANLEY, Falkland Islands – An overwhelming 99.8 percent of Falkland Islands voters have backed keeping their government just the way it is: a British Overseas Territory. Of the 1,517 valid votes cast, only 3 islanders voted "no" to the question: "Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?" One vote was somehow lost, officials said Monday. The referendum was aimed at showing the world that the residents' self-determination must be considered in any discussion about the future of the remote South Atlantic islands that are claimed by both...

Residents of the Falkland Islands voted overwhelmingly to remain a British Overseas Territory, an official said late Monday. The question put to voters was: "Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?" More than 99% of voters said yes, according to Darren Christie, public relations manager for the Falklands Islands government. Just three people voted no. Turnout was 92%. "Speaks for itself, I think," Christie said about the vote. Monday marked the final day of a two-day referendum on the disputed Falkland Islands, which Argentinians call Las Malvinas....

Defence chiefs prepare new plans to defend Falkland Islands Defence chiefs have drawn up new contingency plans designed to prevent hostile action by Argentina towards the Falkland Islands. By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent 9:00PM GMT 12 Jan 2013 A series of military options are being actively considered as the war of words over the islands intensifies. It is understood that additional troops, another warship and extra RAF Typhoon combat aircraft could be dispatched to the region ahead of the March referendum on the Falkland Islands’ future. The options being proposed by planners at the Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, north-west...

It is Margaret Thatcher Day in the Falkands, a perfect moment to celebrate the great leadership of the Iron Lady, and to recall her stirring words at Port Stanley on January 10, 1983 upon visiting the Islands for the first time after their liberation: Today again the Union Jack flies over Port Stanley, and may it ever fly there. So we in the Falkland Islands and in Great Britain re-dedicate our lives to the cause of freedom and justice of people here and everywhere. We have given an example to the world, and hope to many of those who do...

London (CNN) -- Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has again opened the dispute over sovereignty of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic, accusing the British government of blatant colonialism. Known to the Argentinians as Las Malvinas, the two countries went to war over the territory in 1982 after the then military government in Argentina landed troops on the islands. In an open letter to British Prime Minister David Cameron and published in British newspapers Thursday, the Argentinian leader said "Britain, the colonial power, has refused to return the territories to the Argentine Republic, thus preventing it from restoring...

Mobs looted supermarkets in Argentina's third largest city early Friday, leaving two dead and two seriously injured in the latest in a spate of such outbursts. Besides that city of Rosario, looters had also rampaged in other Argentina cities on Thursday and into the night. ... Rosario is a hub for industry as well as for farm exports. In Bariloche in the south, officials said looters were apparently venting anger over a blackout that had left much of surrounding Neuquen province without power on Wednesday.